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1
He thought it was a concussion at first. It made sense, considering he'd been clobbered over the head more than once during Jad’s attack, and an arrow to the eye most likely hadn't helped matters.
“You need rest, Swallow, rest and more rest”, said Triss, handing him a bottle of Lambert’s new and improved potion.
Five weeks later he was still convalescing, dragging himself back and forth between the bed and the privy, a thunderclap running through his head when Lambert shut the door slightly too loudly, or when Milena opened the curtains in an attempt to cheer him up.
Eventually Triss prescribed him tincture of poppy, triple strength, which sent him into a long, fitful sleep. When he awoke he was tired and groggy, but he thanked Melitele, Freya and even the Great Sun when he realised he'd been released from the grip of the mystery illness.
2
It came back a week later.
He was out on the training ground, lightly sparring with Gaetan, a beam of sunlight reflecting off the stone wall of the keep putting him at a disadvantage that was steadily worsening his mood.
“Swap positions?” asked Aiden hopefully. “The sun's in my eye.”
Gaetan looked up, then gave him the kind of puzzled look he'd never seen on his brothers’ faces before this whole business with Jad.
“Hogshit, the sun’s behind the clouds. You’re all healed up - I ain’t going easy on you anymore, old man.”
Aiden looked up too, and as he did he realised the sun was following him, and when he shut his good eye to try and recalibrate he found that the beam of light was behind his eyelids after all.
Half an hour later he fell back into hell.
3
Aiden doesn't remember much about his life before the Cat School took him in. But he knows he was in an orphanage, and that he and the other kids had to earn their keep by working in the orchards.
He also remembers Lucy, a soft, weepy girl who always begged off work due to pain in her head. Aiden joined the other kids in nicknaming her Lazy Lucy and laughing when the masters caned her for shirking her responsibilities. They all knew - he didn't know how they knew, but they all knew - that if they didn't work hard and be useful then nobody would ever want them, they'd never have a family or a vocation or a place in this big wide world that had already discarded them before they could even talk.
I’d never be like her, he thought. Expecting others to do the work while I'm handed things for free.
4
Aiden’s nose was buzzing. He'd come across a lot of strange things in his life, between monsters and curses and humans, had been surprised many a time, but he was still pretty sure that noses weren't actually meant to buzz.
He was already dealing with a sword being stabbed into his neck and another right through his eye (the eye that doesn't even exist anymore, how is that fair!). A buzzing nose, he guessed, was no weirder, considering there was not a single sword in the room with them, just a few daggers they kept around in case of emergencies: under the bed; in Lambert’s boot; under Milena’s skirts.
He lay there, eyes squeezed shut, contemplating whether it was worth telling anyone; whether anyone would listen. Whether anyone would understand, or if it’d just be another addition to the list of Reasons Aiden isn't Fun Anymore.
5
The routine they fell into was this: Aiden would ignore his symptoms until he physically couldn't, then Lambert or Milena (usually Milena) would usher him into bed. He'd hide under the covers until he had no choice but to come up for air, where he'd find Milena quietly embroidering in the corner, a frown marring her pretty face.
Lambert would bring him food he couldn't eat or a book he couldn't read and Aiden would feel the frustration rolling off him, and it would pile on top of Aiden's own too-big feelings until he was weighed down like a sack of kittens tossed into the ocean, spluttering and gasping until eventually his mouth opened against his will and another arrow hit his eye and trolls threw rocks around his head and rattled them about until he couldn't tell up from down, and eventually he just gave in. Gave in and lay there and quietly sobbed just like Lazy Lucy, gave in and let the tears fill his lungs and choke him as he slowly drowned.
6
“That’s bullshit, Merigold!” Aiden heard Lambert yell. “What's the point of all your stupid magic if you can't fix him? What's the point of you being here?”
“Lambert,” said Triss in a placating tone that Aiden knew would set Lambert off further. “Not everything can be fixed.”
He made it to the door before Lambert could reply, then stood and stared at them both, not quite sure what to say. He knew what he wanted to say: Why can't I be fixed? Why am I broken? Was it Jad’s fault? Why me?
Instead he said “I don't like you talking about me when I'm not here,” and Triss nodded and apologised while Lambert turned an even more violent shade of pink, shame piled on top of anger this time, then turned and stormed off.
He returned a day later with a confused Keira Metz in tow. “He didn't tell me anything”, she said when Aiden confronted them on the steps of the keep, “except that there's a medical mystery to solve.”
Aiden laughed like he wasn’t the medical mystery, like he wasn't six more steps removed from humanity now than he had been when he was made a witcher.
7
Aiden might have been half blind but he wasn't deaf, so he'd heard the whisperings in the halls of Kaer Morhen.
“It’s his humours, I reckon.”
“He hasn't been right in the head since he came back.”
“I think he’s cursed, I do. He's brought some kind of evil back into this keep and we're just letting it stay!”
“He just needs a dose of me mam’s nettle tea, that'll fix him right up. Shame on that witch for messing around with spells and potions, she's doing more harm than good!”
He added a pair of nice soft ear muffs (not too tight please!) to the Yule wishlist Milena had asked him for, and in the meantime tried not to imagine who would miss him if he just walked out into the snow and never came back.
8
He’d become an indoor cat. He hadn't thought he could be domesticated, Melitele knows Lambert had never tried, and had never wanted that for him anyway.
But now he's kept and provided for. Other witchers hunt the meat he eats; the keep’s gardeners grow the vegetables. The kitchen prepares the meals, and Lambert or Milena or sometimes one of the other Cats brings them right to him, four nights out of seven.
Eskel hasn't scheduled him on patrol since Aiden succumbed to an attack just half a day out from the keep, shivering and groaning and vomiting into the bushes, causing the whole party to abandon their mission and carry him back to the keep like a kitten struck down with scours.
Sometimes he sleeps in the rafters, just to make sure he still can, and every nap he wakes from with a clear head and a bright eye and a spark in his gut lets him believe, just for moment, that he's still Aiden.
9
Keira comes up with the spell just after Yule, and it’s the best gift he's ever received.
“You can't keep having tincture of poppy,” she’d said. “It’s addictive.” Instead, she'd spent hours at a time winding her magic tendrils through his brain, inspecting and investigating and testing, and then testing again until she’d ruled out yet another theory. “There’s no evidence it’s of magical origin,” she'd said after the first session.
Most sessions sent him into another episode, but without a choice he'd endured them, just like he'd always endured, in the hope that something better was just around the corner.
And finally, finally, Keira had rummaged around in his brain for long enough that she'd figured out she could put in a magical block when an episode kicked in. It didn't get rid of all the symptoms, like the fatigue and the nausea and the sadness, but it did make the pain go away and let him sleep the rest off, and he only lost four hours every time instead of twelve. He normally hated light but this time it was more welcome than it had been in months, the light at the end of the tunnel that was shining right in his eyes.
10
“You're energetic today,” Milena observed, which Aiden had discovered was code for I'm happy you're feeling good but, Melitele, you're annoying me and I need you to dump that energy on someone else before I use my dagger on your other eye.
So Aiden went to find Lambert, who was out training as he usually was in the morning, and who greeted him with open arms and a concerning glint in his eye.
“Thought you were down for the count last night.”
“I was, but Triss got back from Tretogor just in time to get the block in place. I wanna run the Killer - you in?”
Lambert nodded and followed him to the training course, and Aiden couldn't shake the sudden feeling that everything was right with the world, among the new world order that had witchers on top, and the home that Lambert and Milena had shared with him, and the body that was finally - finally - letting him have enough real moments that he was Aiden again, even when he wasn't.
And he couldn't ask for more than that.